Date of Award

12-2007

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

This study compared 56 children between the ages of 7 and 13 with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), children with a diagnosis of ADHD and a reading disability (ADHD/RD), children with only a reading disability (RD), and a control group on measures of cognition, reading, executive function, and memory tasks. Specifically, the study was looking to examine the impact of comorbid disorders on the performance of children with ADHD on tests of cognitive function. Given that children diagnosed with ADHD frequently will display a learning disability, often a reading disability, this study also examined the impact of comorbidity on tests of cognitive function. All children were administered several measures of cognitive functioning, reading comprehension, executive function measures, and memory tasks. The data analysis consisted of comparing the children's performance from the four different groups on a variety of tasks.

The results of the present study suggest that there are differences in performance on several measures of cognitive, reading, executive function, and memory ability between the four groups studied. Overall, the Control group had better performance than the other groups. Children in the ADHD and ADHD/RD group had deficits on various executive function and memory tasks. Children in the RD group had lower performance on various reading tasks.

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS